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Free Press Staff Writer

Gov. Peter Shumlin and Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., tried to reassure 35 representatives of small businesses, but not overpromise what the future would bring when they have to start purchasing health insurance through Vermont Health Connect, the new online marketplace mandated by federal law and opening Oct. 1.

“We are working as hard as we can to take the Affordable Care Act and make it work in Vermont,” Shumlin told the gathering hosted Monday at Main Street Landing by Welch’s office and the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Shumlin reminded the audience that without reforms, “the rising cost of health care is unsustainable.”

With news last week that the Obama administration would postpone for a year a requirement that businesses with more than 50 employees provide health insurance for their workers or pay a penalty, critics in Washington D.C. and in Vermont pounced to stir up unease about the prospects for success of the new marketplace.

Robin Lunge, director of health care reform for the Shumlin administration countered last week in response, “We are very much managing our own process.”

Monday Shumlin assured the gathering “that by Oct. 1, Vermont will have a simple website to go to where you can get very good information about affordable health care.”

Then, however, he weakened the promise by saying, “On Oct. 1, we are going to be up and running — we hope.” And his description of the new online marketplace switched from simple, which could be interpreted as easy to use, to “barebones,” which suggests plywood with floors to come later. Shumlin reinforced that second interpretation when he said the bells and whistles would be added in January.

Welch offered the audience a reminder about the reality of writing legislation. “It is not as though you can pass a law and have it work for everyone,” he said.

He discounted a letter sent to the state by the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform – a committee on which Welch serves. The letter suggested Vermont was going to illegally restrict individuals and small businesses to shopping for health insurance on Vermont Health Connect.

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Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, suggested in the letter that the federal health reform law prohibited such a purchasing restriction.

“He sent frankly a political and bogus letter that suggests Vermont is doing something wrong,” Welch told the business gathering.

The Shumlin administration remains confident that the prohibition language that Issa cited refers to the federal exchange, and that another section of the law explicitly permits states to regulate their new insurance marketplaces just as they now regulate health insurance.

Welch said last week that Issa and other House Republicans shouldn’t be throwing roadblocks in the way of states like Vermont that are trying to carry out health care reform. Making a big change brings with it plenty of challenges without manufacturing more, he suggested.

Monday he repeated his reality check about the challenges ahead, but said that’s why he and his staff worked with the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce to set up the briefing that was to follow his comments.

“This meeting is to get your feedback about what is working and what is not,” he said. Of course, nothing is operating yet, so Welch added, “The point of the meeting today is to get that process started.” He said his staff would hold similar sessions across the state.

Welch reminded the group of some health reforms that have already taken effect such as a provision that allows parents to continue to insure adult children until age 26. “I have heard from so many Vermonters about what that has meant to them that their son or daughter was able to stay on their health care.”

He suggested the time for political debate about health care reform had passed. Now it’s time for a “practical debate,” he said, in which all sides listen to what the problems are and deliberate about solutions.

Welch noted that the Lake Champlain Chamber has been awarded funding to serve as a “navigator” through the transition to a new health insurance marketplace. That means its staff will be trained to assist businesses throughout northwestern Vermont in figuring out how to use Vermont Health Care Connect.

“Having your chamber as a navigator is enormously helpful in giving people confidence,” Welch said.